It’s a little late but here it is, as promised: the Porn for Women Retrospective for 2007.
It was actually a very busy year for women’s erotica, with heaps of movies released especially for straight women and continuing coverage in the press. Statistics and surveys showed that the number of women enjoying adult material is still growing – even if a lot of people still think that women don’t really like porn.
Awards and Shows
* The 2007 AVN Awards in January saw Tristan Taormino’s Chemistry win the award for Best Gonzo, a history-making win as no other woman had won for gonzo films in the past. Dana Dane’s Erocktavision won Best All-Girl series and Buck Angel was Transsexual performer of the year. Beyond that it was all more of the same. The nominations for the 2008 awards are much more promising.
* The 2nd Annual Feminist Porn Awards in June once again saw female-friendly adult films – and their makers – honoured. British director Anna Span, Peggy Comstock and Shine Louise Houston were guests and winners included Tristan Taormino (for Chemistry), Estelle Joseph (for City of Flesh 2) and Tony Comstock (for Matt and Khym). The awards received a number of press mentions in Canada and the US.
* European porn shows and awards acknowledged porn for women in a big way this year. The Berlin Porn Festival featured a panel discussion entitled Good Porn For Good Girls featuring Erika Lust, Petra Joy and Audacia Ray among others. Erika’s film Five Stories For Her won an E-line award at Berlin and Best Spanish Script at the Barcelona Erotic Film Festival. Petra Joy won Best Soft Film at Barcelona.
Controversies And Financial Problems
* A book called Porn For Women by the “Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative” made waves when it was released in March. The book features photos of men doing housework, with captions like “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.” Despite its title, the book does not contain any porn whatsoever. It prompted a fair bit of outrage and handwringing among feminists and female porn fans alike. Feministing put the boot in, saying that men doing housework should be considered normal, not porn, and it inspired Rachel Kramer Bussel to question the whole concept of women’s porn. The main problem people had with the book was that it perpetuated stereotypes about women’s sexuality, although there’s also the major issue that the guys aren’t actually nude.
* Violet Blue became something of a figurehead and spokesperson for women’s porn this year. Firstly she wrote an article for Oprah’s O Magazine in May recommending good porn that women would enjoy. The very idea that Oprah might condone porn at all came as a bit of a shock, but it was very welcome nonetheless.
Controversy occured when Violet appeared on the Tyra Banks show about women and porn. Her negative experiences behind the scenes made for interesting reading and she concluded that it had been a waste of time as the show didn’t really cover the topic adequately. Clips on Youtube showed a group of “Mrs Average” women arguing over porn along with Nina Hartley making some very sensible comments in response.
* A kerfuffle broke out in the blogosphere about feminist porn and blowjobs following the panel discussion at Venus Berlin. Petra, Erika and Audacia had something to say on the topic, and I pitched in with a summary and my own views.
* Cleis Press became news in January 2007 when their distributor went bankrupt and authors consequently lost months worth of royalties. Cleis is a major publisher of female friendly sex-related books.
* Women’s adult store Good Vibrations revealed they were in financial trouble before being bought out by General Video of America and Trans World News.
* German adult retailer Beate Uhse announced they would be closing their adult shops for women.
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New Adult Films and Websites for Women
There were more films released this year aimed at straight women than ever before. These included:
* Candida Royalle released Under The Covers in February, Afrodite Superstar in April and launched her Femme Chocolat line of films, along with a new website.
* The Bi Apple by Audacia Ray was released by Adam and Eve the same month.
* Tristan Taormino was extremely busy this year, releasing Chemistry 2, Chemistry 3 and her line of Expert Guide educational films from Vivid Ed.
* Comstock Films released Matt and Khym and started work on a number of new films due for release in 2008.
* Tina Tyler continued her male masturbation series with Handyman 3 and Handyman 4.
* Playgirl, sticking to their formula, continued to churn out one title a month along with a multi-movie 4 disc set.
* Erika Lust released her Spanish-language film Cinco Historias Para Ellas (Five Stories For Her). A US release is in the pipeline.
* Innocent Pictures’ All About Anna had a US theatrical release in January and was slated for DVD release all year but is now due to appear January 28, 2008.
* Jamye Waxman released her own line of educational films, the Personal Touch series.
* This year I also discovered the films of Petra Joy – Sexual Sushi and Female Fantasies, and declared the latter to be my most favourite porn film for women ever. Petra is currently working on her third movie.
* On the lesbian front, Dana Dane released Erocktavision 7 and Pink and White Productions released Superfreak and In Search Of The Wild Kingdom. There were also two new authentic lesbian porn sites launched: The Crash Pad Series and Good Dyke Porn.
* Playgirl finally went online in a big way this year with a full membership site. Unfortunately the tour seems very much aimed at gay men, although the site does cater to straight women.
Books and Magazines
* Audacia Ray’s Naked On The Internet arrived in May and received a lot of positive press. The book looks at women who work online in numerous sex-related sites and businesses. I was one of those interviewed, which was pretty cool, I have to say.
* One For The Girls by Clarissa Smith looked at women’s experience of porn via the UK magazine For Women. I was pleased to get a visit and comment from Clarissa about the book.
* Violet Blue edited two fiction compilations for women: Best Women’s Erotica 2008 and Lust: Erotic Fantasies For Women.
* Blam Blam magazine had a successful year having just released their fourth issue. Meanwhile, Sweet Action Magazine appears to have stalled, with no new issues forthcoming and a defunct website.
Damned Lies and Statistics
As usual there were numerous surveys and studies done about women, sex and porn over the year. A quick rundown:
* Nielsen Netratings found that one in three porn viewers in Australia are women, with 4.3 million Aussies accessing online smut in May alone.
* An online survey by Adultshop.com found that only 2% of Australians were offended by adult films and that 52% of females said they watched erotic films to help them get “in the mood†either to have sex with their partner, or alone.
* A survey by Marie Claire and Esquire found that women surfed the net for porn an average of 11 and a half hours per week. Among other things it also found that women masturbate 2.8 times a week.
* A survey by Harlequin Romance Novels found that 33% of women had had cybersex, defined as a sexually explicit conversation or photo/video exchange.
* A book called The Sex Lives of Australian Teenagers found that 53.5% of girls 12 and under have seen porn, and by the age of 16, this rises to 97%.
* A study by Centre for Neuroeconomic Studies at Duke University said that women’s brains weren’t “rewarded” when they look at photos of naked men. Naturally I was sceptical about this.
* The Sun’s survey on female sex fantasies found that 66% of women fantasise about having group sex and they most often dreamed of getting it on with Brad Pitt of Johnny Depp. Well, duh.
* In June a Canadian survey found that women have sex dreams just as often as men.
* NY Time Out’s online poll of what women find sexy found that beefy, hairless men with a six pack, stubble, small tattoos, boxer shorts and an uncut cock was sexy. Like you do.
* A survey of students at a Mormon university found that 31% of young women reported any viewing of pornography. Only 3.2% said they saw such material weekly or daily.
Naked Men, Male Strippers And Nude Celebrities
2007 saw a fair bit of male nudity and beefcake in the news, along with some interesting male stripper antics.
* James Bond actor Daniel Craig got attention for his near-nude turn in Casino Royale and he suggested he may go nude in the next 007 movie. He was named Sexiest Man Alive in a British poll of 4000 women.
* Harry Potter, also known as Daniel Radcliffe, received a standing ovation when he got nude for the play Equus. Nude promo photos from the play subsequently appeared on the net – with questions arising over whether the US government might classify it as child porn, given that Daniel was 16 at the time.
* John Barrowman (Captain Jack from Doctor Who) made headlines by saying he had a huge penis.
* Doctor Who star David Tennant appeared nude in a drama called Recovery. Bruce Willis also got naked for the film Live Free Or Die.
* Ralph Fiennes caused a stir by getting it on with an air attendant in the toilet of a plane and the resulting confessions read better than almost any erotic fiction I’ve read.
* Jamie Durie caused a stir when the US discovered he used to be a stripper with Manpower. I knew it already – I saw him live about 15 years ago (and he was the hottest of them all).
* Jessica Alba called for more male nudity in film, as did Zoe Margolis and this newspaper columnist. Meanwhile, Italian actress Asia Argento said she wanted to make women’s porn.
* 8 dancers from the Chippendales troupe were arrested in Texas for “gyrating sexually” with their pants on.
* Manpower apparently make more money than Russell Crowe or the late Steve Irwin.
* A whole bunch of nude male calendars were released this year, including a very strange Mormon beefcake calendar.
Other Stories Of Interest
* In March the Catalan government in Spain said it wanted to fund female-friendly porn films.
* In February AVN published an article entitled What Do Women Watch?
* In July The makers of Porno Pizza said that their main customers were women.
Highlights from 2007 at Ms Naughty and For The Girls
* My interview with Candida Royalle was very cool, and I also interviewed Venus Hottentot for For The Girls.
* I interviewed Petra Joy and Tristan Taormino for FTG – both great directors and inspiring women.
* FTG conducted our third erotic short story competition.
* Chanelle Gallant interviewed me on her Canadian radio show
* I launched a new CFNM category at Ms Naughty.
* For The Girls launched a blog
I made big posts about:
* My decision not to have children
* Feminist facials
* Google’s crap results
* How Star Wars turned me into a feminist
* Porn, young women and double standards
* Offensive radical feminist comments about sex
* Cultural assumptions about women
* How Christian site Just4ladies.com falsely claims it used to be a porn site.
* Naked men wrestling
* I’ve also tracked the resurgence of censorship in Australia, the legislation banning NT aborigines from owning porn and how the Eros Association isn’t helping much.
I also posted my list of Top 10 Heavy Metal Crotches and the Top 10 Sexy Pirates. Yes, that last one may well have been simply to make use of this brilliant pirate penis photo.
Phew!
Now that is one helluva post. It may have got just a teensy bit larger than planned. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! And here’s hoping that 2008 is just as jam-packed!